One Shabbos afternoon, after a short nap, Rav Moshe Feinstein, zt”l, woke himself up and returned to his learning. The rebbetzin pleaded with Rav Moshe to get more sleep, but he refused and said, “I must learn; I don’t want to be an am ha’aretz (ignoramus)!” The rebbetzin turned to their guest and asked, “Would anyone say that Rabbi Feinstein is an am ha’aretz?!” But R’ Moshe insisted that he needed to push harder to reach greatness in Torah.

This is an example of the type of powerful message that many of us heard in yeshiva that inspired us to put in our utmost to become talmidei chachamim and live the elevated life of a ben Torah. The pinnacle is to become a gadol b’Torah, and one has failed if he remains an am ha’aretz. These messages at times are explicit and, more often, implicit. Regardless, they serve to fuel much of the inspiration for yeshiva talmidim of all ages.

All of us impact the world around us on some level. Whether we are educators, parents, employers, employees, or friends, we all interact with others and want to have a degree of influence on the people around us. When we see someone act in a way that needs improvement, we instinctively want to share our beliefs about the proper mode of behavior, and we hope that they will listen to our advice. Many of us may be surprised that, on a regular basis, our advice is often not followed. This is becoming increasingly more prevalent even among authority figures such as parents and teachers. Of course, authority figures often have the power to use coercion, but today that causes much resentment and is only used as a last resort. What then is the most effective way to have a positive impact on others?

The main focus of this article is to answer this question from my personal perspective as a rebbe dealing with beis medrash age talmidim. However, it is equally applicable to parents and, to a certain extent, to all of us who have social interactions. (The essential insights are true for younger children as well, although they have to be applied differently than the approach discussed in this article.)

Recently there had been much publicity in the media about the lax standards of Facebook in allowing false and inaccurate information to be posted. One of the great liberties of Western society is freedom of speech. In former times, much of society lived in fear that any words they said or wrote could be used against them, interpreted as connoting something negative regarding the government or the official religion of the state. In some countries, this was taken to a fearsome extreme. In the mid-1930s in Germany, Rabbi Shimon Schwab lectured one Shabbos about the sin of the golden calf. Rabbi Schwab explained that this was not true idol worship. Rather, since Moses had ascended Mt. Sinai and not returned at the expected time, the Jews wanted to use the calf as a replacement for Moses. The calf was to serve as a “middleman” between them and Hashem. Rabbi Schwab explained that, in truth, Jews should relate directly to G-d without a middleman. He said, “We did not need a mittler (German for middleman).” An informer told the Nazis that Rabbi Schwab had said that we do not need “Hitler.” Rabbi Schwab was heavily interrogated and ultimately had to flee the country.

Over the past number of decades, klal Yisrael as a whole has grown so much in terms of dikduk (meticulousness) in mitzvos. This is true of so many different halachos: standards of kashrus, shmiras Shabbos, Torah learning – the list goes on. In regard to shmiras halashon, there has also been tremendous headway in awareness of this serious issue. Many people therefore study sefer Chofetz Chaim or one of the many English sefarim about shmiras halashon on a regular basis. Yet many of us continue to struggle with the adherence, in practice, to the halachos of shmiras halashon.

Just recently, I presented some practical applications of hilchos lashon hara to a number of serious yeshiva students. They were a bit shocked